Hocbigg - Philosophy

Path to a free self-taught education in Philosophy!

Contents

• Summary
• Communities
• Curriculum
• Code of conduct

Summary

This roadmap provides a structured, self-paced program equivalent to a 4-year undergraduate foundation in philosophy, condensed into approximately 1–2 years at 20 hours per week.

It assumes a commitment to rigorous reading, critical analysis, and written reflection to build analytical skills, ethical reasoning, and philosophical argumentation.

Note: When there are courses or books that don't fit into the curriculum but are otherwise of high quality, they belong in extras/courses, extras/readings or extras/other_curricula.

How to contribute

Communities

• Forums:

  • The Philosophy Forum
  • Online Philosophy Club
  • Philosophy Now Forum
  • Able2Know Philosophy

• Subreddits:

  • r/philosophy
  • r/askphilosophy
  • r/AcademicPhilosophy
  • r/historyofphilosophy
  • r/Ethics
  • r/EasternPhilosophy

• Discord servers:

  • The Philosophy Chat
  • The Philosophy Cafe
  • Brainiac
  • Colloquiallum

• Other:

  • FediPhilosophy (Mastodon Instance)
  • zirk.us (Arts & Humanities Mastodon)
  • hcommons.social (Humanities Commons Mastodon)

• You can also interact through GitHub issues. If there is a problem with a course, or a change needs to be made to the curriculum, this is the place to start the conversation. Read more here.

• Join our Discord server (for discussions around this and other curricula):

  

Curriculum

• I. Orientation and Philosophical Tools
• II. Historical Foundations of Philosophy Western
• III. Systematic Core Fields
• IV. Advanced and Specialized Fields

I. Orientation and Philosophical Tools

Purpose: Introduce philosophy as a discipline, its methods, and the basic tools required for all further study.

Subject	Book / Text	Online Resource
Introduction to Philosophy	The Problems of Philosophy — Bertrand Russell	MIT OpenCourseWare – Introduction to Philosophy
Philosophical Methods and Argumentation	Philosophy: A Text with Readings (open selections via Open Textbook Library) + Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – “Philosophical Method”
Logic and Critical Reasoning (Foundational)	Paul Teller – A Modern Formal Logic Primer	MIT OCW – Logic I

II. Historical Foundations of Philosophy (Western)

Purpose: Understand philosophy through its major historical developments before abstraction into fields.

Subject	Book / Text	Online Resource
Ancient Philosophy	Jonathan Barnes – Early Greek Philosophy (Archive.org)	Yale Open Courses – Ancient Philosophy
Medieval Philosophy	SEP entries on Augustine, Aquinas, Avicenna (curated reading list)	Oxford Podcasts – Medieval Philosophy
Early Modern Philosophy	Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Archive.org)	Yale Open Courses – Early Modern Philosophy
Nineteenth & Twentieth Century Philosophy	SEP entries on Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Frege, Wittgenstein	Yale Open Courses – Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature

III. Systematic Core Fields

Purpose: Study philosophy by domain, informed by historical foundations.

Subject	Book / Text	Online Resource
Ethics	Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics (Archive.org)	Harvard – Justice
Political Philosophy	Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Political Philosophy	Yale Open Courses – Introduction to Political Philosophy
Epistemology	Duncan Pritchard – What Is This Thing Called Knowledge? (selected open chapters via Archive.org)	MIT OCW – Theory of Knowledge (closest match for Epistemology)
Metaphysics	Alyssa Ney – Metaphysics: An Introduction (Archive.org)	Open University – Introducing Philosophy
Philosophy of Mind	Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings (Archive.org)	Oxford – Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy of Language	William Lycan – Philosophy of Language (Archive.org)	Searle: Philosophy of Language
Aesthetics	SEP – Aesthetics	Open University – Art and Philosophy
Philosophy of Religion	SEP – Philosophy of Religion	Yale Open Courses – Philosophy of Religion

IV. Advanced and Specialized Fields

Purpose: Optional deepening after mastery of core domains.

Subject	Book / Text	Online Resource
Advanced Logic and Analytic Philosophy	David Bostock – Intermediate Logic (official publisher page; full text requires purchase, but preview available)	Carnegie Mellon – Argument Diagramming
Philosophy of Science	Samir Okasha – Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction (Archive.org)	University of Pennsylvania – Philosophy of Science (Coursera, audit)
Applied and Contemporary Ethics	SEP – Applied Ethics	Oxford – Practical Ethics

Congratulations

After completing the requirements of the curriculum above, you will have completed the equivalent of a full bachelor's degree in Philosophy.

Congratulations!

Code of conduct

Hocbigg's code of conduct.